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U.S. health authorities have made pregnant women one of the highest priority groups for getting the H1N1 swine flu vaccine, but is it actually safe for pregnant women and their babies? Well, the truth is that miscarriage reports from pregnant women who have taken the H1N1 swine flu vaccine are starting to pour in from all over the nation. Vaccines and pregnancy simply do not mix safely. In fact, the package inserts for the swine flu vaccines actually say that the safety of these vaccines for pregnant women has not been established.

What you are about to read below should shock and anger you. If they are telling us that the swine flu vaccine is not safe for children under 6 months of age, then why in the world would it be safe for pregnant women and their babies? That doesn’t make an ounce of sense, does it?

I am so upset. I was so excited to be pregnant after trying for a year. As soon as I found out I was pregnant, I joined this birth club and I was due June 25th. We have two healthy boys with no history of miscarriage. Everything was going great. Last Monday, I got the H1N1 vaccine thimerosal reduced (mercury reduced for pregnant women). On Tuesday morning, I started cramping and on Wednesday I started bleeding heavily. My hcg was 50 on Wednesday and I was almost 6 weeks along so it was low. They still thought that I might be pregnant but on Friday my hcg was down to 22. I am an emotional wreck. I feel like I had a healthy baby and I caused this by getting the H1N1 vaccine. My doctors pushed it. I researched online and there have been many miscarriages after the H1N1 vaccine but they haven’t been reported since it is hard to say what caused the miscarriages. I hope that I did not cause this. I wish everyone the best.

Tayla08:

I don’t have an answer for you, but a friend of a friend just had a miscarriage 2-3 days after getting the shot. She was 7weeks. She had no previous history of m/c… No one can answer if they’re related…it hasn’t been out long enough and there haven’t been any studies done on pregnant women. I will tell you, that it has made up my mind on getting it…I won’t and I’m not going to get it for my DD either. My daughter and I both had H1N1 last week, and although it truly sucks…I think I’ll take my chances. One doctor will tell you to get it and the next will tell you not too…you have to do what’s in your heart.

90707:

my heart goes out to you as i recently miscarried as well and was due in june. i had a healthy heart beat at 6wks. then at 7.5 wks my son got the h1n1 mist vaccine which has live vaccine in it. the nurse said to be careful b/c it could technically spread if he rubbed his nose and touched a surface etc. the next night i miscarried and 5 days later was diagnosed with h1n1. i work from home, kids are home, hadnt been anywhere during that time. so the chances that it is all related are very high. the flu mist vaccine warns for immunocompromised patients (which includes prego) to stay away from recipients of the flu mist for 21 days.

I got the flu vaccine (regular not H1N1) at 8 weeks pregnant. Three days later I miscarried. I am not going to get the H1N1.

Regrets:

I got both vaccines on Thursday. I was 9 weeks pregnant. I miscarried on Sunday. I was told by several doctors to get these vaccines. Now I wish I followed my gut feeling and not get them at ALL!

:

i work in a hospital like setting and was told ‘the benefits outweigh the risks” 1am i got the vaccine, 3am i started bleeding and craming, 3pm miscarried. you decide

sue:

I had the H1N1 vaccination and 24 hours later had a miscarriage.

Linda Hill:

My daughter in law was 10 weeks pregnant and had the H1N1 vaccine on Friday that night she miscarried.

SoSorry:

I was so ready to get the H1N1 vaccine last week and they were only giving them to pregnant women. I was 6 weeks along and got it and the next day I started cramping and miscarried. I already had two healthy pregnancies and never miscarried or had any problems. My doctors think I am crazy to think it was the H1N1 but if no one looks into this than other women will not know. I am so sorry that I got it.

Connie:

I also received the H1N1 vaccination on October 22nd, 2009 and went into labor on October 25th, at 16 weeks pregnant and we just heard the heartbeat and everything was fine with my pregnancy on October 16th, 2009, then on October 28th my water broke then on October 29th, I delivered a stillborn baby boy, and no one can tell me why…Everyone wants to say it did not come from the shot but I believe it did. My baby was growing at the correct pace and everyone wants to brush off the vaccination. I say if you have the vaccination and suffer a miscarriage if they are able to perform an autopsy have it done.

I also agree something needs to be done and looked more into with this vaccination because most women are being advised it’s just something that happens, but I also had two healthy children normal pregnancies and when I received this vaccination with my third pregnancy, my baby is gone.

1 in 6 Americans goes hungry

U.S. assistance to food banks rose in 2009 with Recovery Act funding, after a record number of Americans struggled to put food on the table in 2008, a new report found.

NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) — The number of Americans that have trouble putting food on the table shot up last year in an unprecedented spike to a record 17 million households, the government reported on Monday.

The Department of Agriculture report, which has been released annually since 1995, said the number of Americans that were hungry rose to 14.6%. In 2007, 13 million households or 11.1% of Americans had trouble getting enough food.

The one-year jump is all the more significant, given the number of hungry Americans had never been higher than 11.9% since these surveys began.

Of the near-15% of the nation that couldn’t secure enough food last year, the USDA said one-third of them had “very low food security,” meaning they reduced the amount that they ate or disrupted their eating patterns during the year. That group made up 5.7% of all U.S. households, which was also a record high.

More than 500,000 households that scaled back the amount that they ate were households with children, making up 1.3% of all U.S. homes with children.

The USDA said the main cause of hunger and food insecurity in the country is poverty.

Deadly flu continues to spread across Ukraine, criminal World Health Organization lies to the public, MSM maintains radio silence.

There are many aspects to this story. It is impossible to know where to begin — let alone cover all the pertinent facts in just one article. Those who have followed my Zerohedge columns in the past may be aware the subject of pandemic influenza has been a regular feature, precisely because there have been multiple signs indicating a global pandemic would be exploited (and perhaps even initiated) by governments and international banks for political purposes.

The signs have been building, including as I previously reported, forced quarantine orders inadvertently published by the CDC. What do these people know which the public does not?

SUMMARY

Over the past two weeks, what appears to be a particularly virulent form of the flu has been spreading in Ukraine and adjacent Eastern European countries. This new flu is, in my opinion, a lethal new strain which has mutated (or was released). I speak with a background in virology. This new mutated flu virus appears to have a remarkable affinity for the lungs and is causing deaths to a much higher extent than the previous swine flu. Something in the virus has changed. I have covered this incredibly important story for two weeks now in my weekly column This Week In Mayhem, which is generally published on Monday mornings.

Regardless, there has been almost zero (NOTHING. NADA. SILENCE.) mention of the Ukraine epidemic in the mainstream media, a fact which I find both astonishing and profoundly disturbing. There is apparently collusion at the highest levels of government and media to suppress this information. There are now 1.3 million infected in Ukraine, and over 75,000 hospitalized — IN FOURTEEN DAYS. This is very serious! Based on previous clinical data we can expect over 8,000 to be dead or soon to be dead. Forward projection of the epidemic is difficult because the clinical attack rate is unknown — but myself and my associates remain concerned it may be quite high. Deaths globally may be in the millions. Let’s hope this is not the case.

An example of viral pneumonia. Yeah, fail.
The new flu strain, which I contend is spreading in Ukraine and Belarus, is characterized by a lightning form of viral pneumonia — very similar to what happened in 1918. The new flu virus appears to have profound tissue affinity for sialic acid receptors deep in the lungs, replicating in the alveoli. To put it mildly, the lungs fill with blood. Quotes from Ukrainian officials included quotes such as “total destruction of the lungs.” Ukrainian Doctor Viktor Bachinsky has stated, “The virus causing the deaths is extremely aggressive — it doesn’t first infect the throat (as is common in flu), but strikes the lungs directly.” In Ukraine’s western Chernovetsky region, an epicenter of the outbreak, doctors have said lab tests showed at least some of the fatalties appeared to be caused by a flu dissimilar to both common flu and swine flu. In other words, a mutant flu. This claim of a ‘mutant flu’ has been echoed by Ukrainian public health officials such as Dr. Vasyl Lazoryshynetz. Unfortunately, as noted in the above Russia Today video, pharmacies across the country are sold out of antivirals. To the hard of thinking — yes, this is currently happening in Ukraine.

I have multiple sources confirming spot outbreaks of viral pneumonia in Eastern Europe, including official and non-official entities. In terms of the current situation, there appear to be a high number of pneumonia patients in Ukrainian and Belerusian hospitals. This epidemic has not shut down Ukrainian society yet, but it has caused many people to become concerned, and to buy up essential medicines. Reports from doctors in Belarus indicate they do not expect this deadly new flu epidemic to peak until Christmas or later. This is why it is important to analyze the situation and viral genetics now, and if necessary, contain the spread of the virus while it is still possible — something the criminals at WHO do not appear interested in doing. These idiots at WHO have yet to release the viral gene sequences (even though they have had them for two weeks), and are now outright lying in their press releases, which I detail later. In terms of how dangerous this new flu strain could potentially be, I conducted a rough analysis of the Ukrainian government statistics, yielding a projected case fatality rate (CFR) of 0.61% — over six times as lethal as seasonal flu.

The Ukrainian government has been releasing daily data updates on the numbers of “acute respiratory infections” , the number of related hospitalizations , and the number of deaths since Oct 28, 2009. These reported numbers have increased substantially over the past two weeks, from near zero before Halloween to over a million as of today. It is important to remember that these statistics are not laboratory confirmed H1N1 cases (due to the state of the Ukrainian medical system), but we can cautiously assume at this point the vast majority of ARI (acute respiratory infection) in Ukraine with rapid progression to viral pneumonia are caused by influenza A virus. This is because a large subset of these samples are coming up positive of Influenza A, and a smaller subset tested by rt-rtPCR are coming up positive for influenza A/H1N1, or what is more commonly known as ‘swine flu’. This suggests we are dealing with a viral epidemic of influenza.

(Click on images to enlarge.)

This is not ‘swine flu’ as previously known. Statistically, the only way for this to be ‘swine flu’ is if it has mutated (or if the data is wrong). . . We will get to that in a minute.

American goods for sale on Kabul shelves.
KABUL, Afghanistan — First came the Brezhnev Market. Then the Bush Market.

Now Afghans are beginning to call their notorious bazaar full of chow and supplies bought or stolen from the vast U.S. military bases by the name of the current American president, a modest counterweight to his Nobel Peace Prize.

“It is Obama Market now,” pronounced Haji Tor, a rotund shopkeeper who acts as kind of an unofficial chamber of commerce president for the market in the Afghan capital. “Bush is finished.”

Well, maybe not quite yet. Most of the shopkeepers and customers still call it the Bush Market, but several said that the new name is gradually gaining traction.

Paul Craig Roberts was Assistant Secretary of the Treasury during President Reagan’s first term. He was Associate Editor of the Wall Street Journal. He has held numerous academic appointments, including the William E. Simon Chair, Center for Strategic and International Studies, Georgetown University, and Senior Research Fellow, Hoover Institution, Stanford University.

Paul Craig Roberts

The US government is now so totally under the thumbs of organized interest groups that “our” government can no longer respond to the concerns of the American people who elect the president and the members of the House and Senate. Voters will vent their frustrations over their impotence on the president, which implies a future of one-term presidents. Soon our presidents will be as ineffective as Roman emperors in the final days of that empire.

Obama is already set on the course to a one-term presidency. He promised change, but has delivered none. His health care bill is held hostage by the private insurance companies seeking greater profits. The most likely outcome will be cuts in Medicare and Medicaid in order to help fund wars that enrich the military/security complex and the many companies created by privatizing services that the military once provided for itself at far lower costs. It would be interesting to know the percentage of the $700+ billion “defense” spending that goes to private companies. In American “capitalism,” an amazing amount of taxpayers’ earnings go to private firms via the government. Yet, Republicans scream about “socializing” health care.

Republicans and Democrats saw opportunities to create new sources of campaign contributions by privatizing as many military functions as possible. There are now a large number of private companies that have never made a dollar in the market, feeding instead at the public trough that drains taxpayers of dollars while loading Americans with debt service obligations.

Barrick Gold shuts hedge book as world gold supply runs out

Global gold production is in terminal decline despite record prices and Herculean efforts by mining companies to discover fresh sources of ore in remote spots, according to the world’s top producer Barrick Gold.

Aaron Regent, president of the Canadian gold giant, said that global output has been falling by roughly 1m ounces a year since the start of the decade. Total mine supply has dropped by 10pc as ore quality erodes, implying that the roaring bull market of the last eight years may have further to run.

“There is a strong case to be made that we are already at ‘peak gold’,” he told The Daily Telegraph at the RBC’s annual gold conference in London.

“Production peaked around 2000 and it has been in decline ever since, and we forecast that decline to continue. It is increasingly difficult to find ore,” he said.

Ore grades have fallen from around 12 grams per tonne in 1950 to nearer 3 grams in the US, Canada, and Australia. South Africa’s output has halved since peaking in 1970.

The supply crunch has helped push gold to an all-time high, reaching $1,118 an ounce at one stage yesterday. The key driver over recent days has been the move by India’s central bank to soak up half of the gold being sold by the International Monetary Fund. It is the latest sign that the rising powers of Asia and the commodity bloc are growing wary of Western paper money and debt.

China has quietly doubled holdings to 1,054 tonnes and is thought to be adding gradually on price dips, creating a market floor. Gold remains a tiny fraction of its $2.3 trillion in foreign reserves.

Every phone call, text message, email and website visit made by private citizens is to be stored for a year and will be available for monitoring by government bodies.

All telecoms companies and internet service providers will be required by law to keep a record of every customer’s personal communications, showing who they have contacted, when and where, as well as the websites they have visited.

Despite widespread opposition to the increasing amount of surveillance in Britain, 653 public bodies will be given access to the information, including police, local councils, the Financial Services Authority, the ambulance service, fire authorities and even prison governors.

They will not require the permission of a judge or a magistrate to obtain the information, but simply the authorisation of a senior police officer or the equivalent of a deputy head of department at a local authority.

Ministers had originally wanted to store the information on a single government-run database, but chose not to because of privacy concerns.

However the Government announced yesterday it was pressing ahead with privately held “Big Brother” databases that opposition leaders said amounted to “state-spying” and a form of “covert surveillance” on the public.

It is doing so despite its own consultation showing that it has little public support.

The Home Office admitted that only one third of respondents to its six-month consultation on the issue supported its proposals, with 50 per cent fearing that the scheme lacked sufficient safeguards to protect the highly personal data from abuse.

South Korean Rear Adm. Lee Ki Sik speaks in Seoul on Tuesday about the clash of North and South Korean navies
Seoul, South Korea (CNN) — North and South Korean naval forces exchanged fire on Tuesday in disputed waters, a South Korean defense official said.

The two Koreas clashed off their west coast, the first such incident in seven years, each blaming the other for the incident.

South Korean President Lee Myung-bak convened an emergency security meeting and urged the military to to ensure that the naval clash did not escalate into something greater, Yonhap reported.

South Korea issued three verbal warnings to ship from the Communist north once the vessel had crossed a demarcation line late Tuesday morning, said Rear Adm. Lee Ki Sik of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. The South Koreans then fired a warning shot but when the North Korean vessel continued southward, the South Koreans opened fire.

The North Koreans returned fire before heading back, their ship damaged in the exchange, Lee said. There were no South Korean casualties, Lee said.

U.S. President Barack Obama is scheduled to visit South Korea as part of a trip to Asia beginning Thursday.